


Cruel Inheritance

by MuggleMaybe



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Community: HPFT, F/M, Marauders, Marauders' Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-28
Updated: 2016-05-28
Packaged: 2018-07-10 18:29:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6999613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MuggleMaybe/pseuds/MuggleMaybe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sirius Black has betrayed a friend, endangered an enemy, angered the girl he fancies and, most terrible of all, lived up to his name.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cruel Inheritance

  
**Cruel Inheritance**

* * *

I haven’t slept.

The enchanted ceiling is a mocking blue above me when I finally get sick of lying awake in my four-poster and drag myself to the Great Hall. I examine the length of the Gryffindor table, wondering how far news of my transgression has spread. To my surprise, the chatter seems to be only slightly elevated from normal, not the wildfire gossip that would surely follow the complete story. I spare a moment to be grateful for my friends’ loyalty.

Not that I deserve it.

They seem to agree with this assessment. Tentative steps bring me towards James, but he turns his back on me and pushes his book bag into the available seat, refusing to utter a word. I don’t see Remus. He’s usually early to breakfast, and I’m puzzled for the split second it takes me to realize the obvious: After last night, he’ll still be in the hospital wing. It never ceases to amaze me that something as pale and distant as the moon can wreck havoc like this. The severity of my crime washes over me once more. Bloody hell, if Remus never speaks to me again, it’ll be more than I deserve.

My only remaining hope is Peter. But, no. I should have known better. Peter—always strategic, always one to side with the majority—follows James’ lead and ignores me, though with a slight hint of difficulty that ignites and then squashes my hopes.

On a different day, under punishment for a different crime, I might seek out Lily. If nothing else, it makes it considerably harder for James to hold a grudge. This morning, however, even Lily avoids me with a fury I’ve never dreamt possible. I suppose this isn’t surprising. She does always come to Snivellous’ defense, after all. Far more unexpected is that she sits only a spot down from James, and includes him in her conversation with Alice Banks and Frank Longbottom. Ruddy Prefects. And what kind of friend is James, to benefit from my mistake like that?

I move further down the table, away from my friends, and take Lily’s usual seat, abandoned in light of her choice to give my prat of a best mate another chance. Of course, Lily generally sits next to her own best mate, Marlene McKinnon.

 _Marlene._ My hand accidentally brushes her shoulder as I sit and, despite my dark mood, a spark ignites in the pit of my stomach.

She glances at me. It takes everything I have to ignore it, but I manage to settle in and fill my plate without returning her look. The memory of our kiss the year before, only the one time, washes through me, a welcome relief. A single kiss, my first ever. The memory tastes sweet and uncomplicated on my tongue, a flavour I doubt I’ll ever taste again, even on the same lips. I wonder if I tasted the same to her, but then dismiss the thought as ridiculous. She’s surely forgotten. Well, I remember it perfectly.

Her voice, even and unreadable, startles me. “I heard what happened. Or, at least, I heard what they’re saying. Is it true?”

Marlene’s lovely face pulls taut with the painful hope that I’ll deny the claim. My insides turn cold and I put down my fork, swallowing a last bite of egg with great difficulty. “I’m sorry.” It’s pitiful, but it’s the best I can do.

“I see. That’s a yes, then?”

I nod. To my surprise, she reaches across a serving dish and sets her hand over mine. My skin tingles at the long remembered touch, and my mind begs to wander into the memories, far more pleasant than the current situation. Unfortunately, Marlene won’t allow me to escape. The weight of her gaze drags me down, pinning me to the present moment like a specimen on a card.

After a minute or two, she lets out a puff of air. “Snape’s always been horrid to me. All the Slytherins have. Even so, it was a bloody stupid thing to do.”

“I know.”

“If I were Lily, I’d never speak to you again.”

“Well, you’re not. And thank Merlin for it.” Lily is too kind hearted for her own good. She ought to have realized Snape was a sodding bastard years ago. I certainly had.

“Sirius!” Marlene’s face is stern again.

“What? I said I was sorry! What more do you want from me?” Of course I would undo it if I could, but it happened. It’s done. And time turners don’t grow on trees. Why don’t people understand that?

“You can’t just brush this off. He could have died, and it would have been your wand on the line. I’m amazed Dumbledore didn’t expel you! You would have deserved it.”

Before I’ve even fully processed what she’s saying, I’m on my feet. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“All I’m saying is, you need to be more careful. It’s time to grow up, Black!”

Rage, heavy and opaque, fogs my find. “Don’t. Call. Me. That.” I spit the words.

Marlene stands up, too, and settles her book bag on her shoulder. She has very blue eyes. Normally they’re beautiful, but right now they snap bitterly, wrenching my gut. She levels them on me like a curse. “If you don’t want to be a Black, you’d best stop behaving like one!”

I watch her leave the Great Hall, my stomach turning sour. Nobody understands. Nobody understands how sorry I am, how the guilt eats at me until I want to scream. Still, I can’t be angry with Marlene, not when I know she’s right. Even before she spoke them, the truth of her words lived in my bones. The very same thoughts caused me a sleepless night.

I feel my face fall into a grim expression, my jaw clenched, and promise myself that I will never again behave like the son-of-a-bitch I am. No matter what it takes, I refuse to be my mother’s son.

Hastily shouldering my own bag, I scramble up from the table and race out of the Great Hall after Marlene. She has to understand, has to hear it from me before I lose my nerve. I will fight my family’s prejudice and cruelty with everything I’ve got, every ounce of my rebellious nature put to the task, and I don’t care if the effort kills me.

I finally catch up with her outside the History of Magic classroom. “Marlene,” I gasp, breathing hard. She sits alone, leaning against the cold stone wall with _A History of Magic_ propped open against her knees, but she isn’t reading.

Her face, when she looks up, is equal parts angry and apologetic. “Took you long enough,” she says, after a moment’s silence.

Baffled and exhausted, I slide down the wall to sit beside her. I know she’s waiting for me to speak, but it seems impossible to articulate what needs to be said. I keep hoping she’ll cave in and talk first, but she doesn’t, and eventually it’s either speak or be murdered by the silence.

“It was a mistake,” I finally say.

Marlene raises her eyebrows at the inadequacy of this statement, and I rush to continue.

“I mean, worse than a mistake. I don’t have words terrible enough for how bad this is. I fucked up. I’m not going to pretend I don’t hate Snape, because I do. But I fucked up.”

“That,” she says pointedly, “is very, very true.” Her face remains shuttered.

“I don’t know what else to say! What do you want me to say?” My pulse quickens as my words gain heat, and suddenly I’m shouting. “I’m sorry, okay? But this doesn’t have anything to do with you! Why do you bloody care?”

A horrific beat of silence, punctuated by two ragged gasps for breath.

“I liked you, Sirius,” Marlene says, and the hurt in her face is the worst weapon she could ever wield against me. “Back in first year, older students told me I was a fool to even talk to you. You were bound to hate a Muggleborn like me, they said, bound to hurt me. They said you were dangerous, but you made me laugh and I thought you were brilliant. I ignored their advice. We were friends. I trusted you! I stood up for you when people lumped you in with your family, and then you go and do something like this. Something so bloody horrible, and cruel, and Slytherin-like that I’m not sure I even know you anymore! Because the Sirius Black that I’m friends with would never do what you did.”

Her words attack me, and it’s like a duel, a dementor, and a full body-bind curse all at once. She is still talking, but the pain has ratcheted a step too high and blazes in my ears, blocking out her words.

“Stop!” I try to yell, but it comes out coarse and muffled. “Please, Marlene, stop. I know.”

She breaks off midsentence, and my internal chaos subsides a little. Only when her finger brushes lightly across my cheek, wiping away a tear, do I realize that she stopped not because of my plea, but because I am crying.

Her face is right there, so close to mine. The mask of anger fades and concern shows through, my heart stumbling a little at the sight. I could reach up and run my fingers along her soft-as-dawn jaw. The slightest bow of my head would allow my lips to capture hers or, perhaps, to explore the delicate hallow of her neck.

I could do these things, but I am too ashamed. I am ashamed for even thinking them, for taking pleasure in daydreams I have no right to. Everything she’s said is true. I have made myself into the worst kind of traitor. I turn away.

“Sirius…” Her hand warms my arm, forcing me to face her.

“I fucked up,” I say again, weakly this time, my eyes on the stone floor.

“You did,” she agrees, but her voice is gentle. She pulls me closer, and then closer still, into her soothing, violet scent, until I’m leaning against her shoulder, her hand tracing circles on my back.

If you took a snapshot of this moment and compared it with my fantasies, you’d see little difference. But there is every difference in the world, because this is not romantic. This is me, shattered, burning with pain, guilty in every sense of the word. It is a boy, rightly condemned, and the soft shoulder he leans on but does not deserve.

It wrecks me, this injustice in my favour, and the words slip out, barely distinguishable. “I’ll do better,” I croak. “I swear it. I swear I’ll fight this. Even if it kills me.”

Marlene nods and murmurs her agreement, neither of us knowing that in the end, it will not be me it kills but, far too quickly, her.

**Author's Note:**

> All hail J. K. Rowling, the owner of everything you see before you.
> 
> A huge THANK YOU to HeyMrsPotter and AngelEyes3954 for their help with this story. You're the best! 
> 
> As always, reviews would put a huge smile on my face.


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